Introduction

Still Motions Photographics, based out of Manitoba Canada, is the photography company created by Ray D. Bean. He has extensive experience as a freelance photographer, much of it doing defense imaging. He has amassed a collection of over 35,000 images, many of which have been published on Still Motions photo DVDs. This disk, Volume 67 USN Cruisers Part 4, is loaded with photos of USN Cruisers, the majority of them taken during WWII.

The Photo DVD

My review sample came packaged in a soft CD sleeve and the disk has been signed by Ray Bean himself. The disk is in a DVD format with 363 images saved on it, all in a jpeg format. The simple way the disk is structured makes it very easy for you to copy some or all of the photos from the DVD and save them wherever you like. I copied the all the files onto the hard drive of my Netbook to make going through them faster and easier. The images on the disk are loosely grouped by ship however some of the file names have an underscore in front of them so they wind up at the beginning when they should be together with the rest of the images for that ship. If you’re using these photos for reference for a particular build, you can simply fix the file names for those with the underscore then they’ll be in the proper order when you sort them.

These DVDs are put together with the modeler and researcher in mind. The photos are high quality images, many much clearer and better than you often find in books and on the internet. In many instances, there are captions and various details worthy of note highlighted on the photos. Some photos have no captions, however the name of the file will identify which ship is in the photo and sometimes from what time period. For many of the high resolution images, the photographer has cropped them to focus in on specific details of the superstructures, radars, AA guns and other features worthy of note. Many of the ships have numerous images of at various points throughout their service which will prove to be invaluable to the modeler who needs images of the ship in a particular configuration.

I have put together a list of all the ships on the DVD including the year the photo was taken. This will help you determine if the disk has the images that you’re looking for. If you’re interested in researching or building a model of one of these USN Cruisers, then this DVD will be an excellent photo reference for you.

Photos of USN Cruisers on the DVD and the time period of the photos:

• USS Alaska 44, 45
• USS Astoria 39, 40, 42
• USS Atlanta 40, 41, 42
• USS Boise 41, 42, 43, 45
• USS Brooklyn 41, 42, 43
• USS Flint 44, 45
• USS Fresno 47
• USS Guam 44
• USS Helena 41, 42
• USS Honolulu 42, 44
• USS Juneau 41, 42, 46, 51, 52
• USS Louisville 45
• USS Minneapolis 34, 35, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45
• USS Nashville 38, 42, 43, 45
• USS New Orleans 34, 42, 45
• USS Oakland 43, 45, 46
• USS Philadelphia 42, 43, 44
• USS Phoenix 38, 43, 44
• USS Quincy 42
• USS Reno 44
• USS St. Louis 41, 42, 43, 44, 45
• USS San Diego 42, 43, 44, 45
• USS San Francisco 40, 42, 43, 44, 45
• USS San Juan 42, 43, 44
• USS Savannah 38, 42, 43, 44, 45
• USS Tucson 45
• USS Tuscaloosa 39, 40, 42, 44
• USS Vincennes 37, 38, 42

At the tail end of the photos on the disk are some photos of various US Navy Yards and some detail shots of some of the catapult launched floatplanes.

Conclusion

This is an excellent DVD photo collection of WWII-era USN Cruisers. The quality and quantity of the images make it an excellent photo reference for the modeler and naval researcher. With an MSRP of $25 it may seem a little pricey to some, however, if the disk has the photos you desperately need for reference, then this DVD is worth its weight in gold.